I was hoping that the first installment of The Hobbit trilogy would be merely a Phantom Menace moment, and that Peter Jackson would produce leaner, tighter sequels that would pull this ill-conceived trilogy out of the crapper. But no. I am saddened to report that The Desolation of Smaug is freighted with the same problems as the first movie, and more.
Author: Trevor Lynch
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I have never liked the character of Superman. He is not a man who has transcended humanity toward something higher. He is simply an alien, who looks like one of us, and who comes equipped with a whole array of superpowers. From a Nietzschean and Faustian standpoint, that translates to zero appeal. I am not interested in being rescued by a superior being. I am interested in becoming a superior being. Furthermore, none of the Superman movies or TV shows ever managed to make this character compelling to me (more…)
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April 30, 2013 Trevor Lynch
Batman Begins
English original here
Après avoir été bluffé par l’Inception de Christopher Nolan, j’ai décidé de donner à son Batman Begins (2005) une nouvelle chance. La première fois que j’ai vu ce film, je ne l’ai pas aimé. Pas un seul instant. J’ai dû être distrait, car cette fois je l’ai apprécié. Nolan rompt avec le style kitsch des premiers films de Batman, se concentrant sur l’évolution et les motivations du personnage, (more…)
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April 30, 2013 Trevor Lynch
The Dark Knight
English original here
Dans ma critique du Batman Begins de Christopher Nolan, j’ai affirmé que le film génère un conflit spectaculaire autour des enjeux les plus élevés qui soient : la destruction du monde moderne (symbolisé par Gotham City) par la “Ligue des Ombres” Traditionaliste contre sa préservation et son amélioration “progressive” par Batman.
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Joss Whedon’s Firefly
is a science fiction series that lived and died on the Fox Network in the Fall of 2002. Fourteen episosdes were shot, but only eleven were aired before the series was canceled, to the consternation of the surprisingly large number of loyal fans that the show conjured up in the split second of its existence. In my view, Firefly is one of the best sci-fi shows ever, second only to Battlestar Galactica (more…)
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Youth Without Youth
(2007) is Francis Ford Coppola’s stunning film adaptation of a novella of the same name
by Mircea Eliade (1907–1986), the Romanian scholar of comparative religion and Iron Guard sympathizer. I highly recommend this beautiful, mysterious, endlessly captivating movie. In style, it is classic; in substance, it is eternal.
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Übersetzt von Deep Roots
English original here
Quentin Tarantinos letzter Film, Inglourious Basterds (2007), erzählt die Geschichte einer Gruppe amerikanischer Juden, die sich mit einem Nichtweißen zusammentun (einem indianisch-weißen Mischling aus Tennessee mit einem italienischen Namen wie Tarantino selbst), um während des Zweiten Weltkriegs böse weiße Männer und Frauen (Nazis) zu foltern, zu verstümmeln und abzuschlachten. (more…)
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1,691 words
German translation here
Quentin Tarantino’s last movie, Inglourious Basterds (2007), tells the story of a group of American Jews who team up with a non-white (an Amerindian-white mix from Tennessee with an Italian name, like Tarantino himself), to torture, mutilate, and slaughter evil white men and women (Germans, Nazis) during World War II. ‘Terds, in short, is nothing but an elaborate fantasy of Jewish sadism and revenge. (more…)
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888 words
Anyone who watches Zhang Yimou’s Hero (2002) is likely to want more. Thus I highly recommend Yimou’s next movie, House of Flying Daggers
(2004), which is very much in the same vein: a martial arts film set in the exotic past with complex and interesting characters, impossible but spectacular fights, gorgeous landscapes, and dazzling costumes and sets. House of Flying Daggers was filmed in China and Ukraine. Most of it is set outdoors, in magnificent forests of birch and bamboo, filmed in the lushest colors imaginable. (more…)
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Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s Hero
(2002) is a profoundly beautiful and moving film that celebrates Chinese culture and tradition and promotes noble and patriotic sentiments. Hero is based very loosely on an actual event that took place in 227 BCE near the end of the Warring States Period. It tells the story of an attempt to assassinate Qin Shi Huang, the King of Qin and later the first Emperor of China.
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I am sorry to report that I was disappointed by The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first installment of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit
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Jackson’s first mistake was trying to make a trilogy at all. The Hobbit is shorter than any of the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings. Thus its story could have been told completely and satisfyingly in a single movie of around two hours.
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Breaking Dawn, Part 2 is the fifth and final movie of Mormon novelist Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally popular Twilight Saga. I think that the Twilight Saga is highly significant, because it offers a systematic argument for traditional — and biological — sexual roles and morality in the form of a Gothic teen romance story involving vampires and werewolves. (I best summarize my take on the Twilight Saga in my review of Breaking Dawn, Part 1.) I also found the movies highly entertaining.
Breaking Dawn, Part 2, however, is a major disappointment. (more…)